im suddenly taken ill. He appeared to be suffering. At
last he feebly made signs for her to go on and leave him alone. The
maiden was sympathetic, but as she did not know what else to do she
obeyed his request.

The poor youth was so ashamed of his cowardice that he afterward
admitted his first thought was to take his own life. He believed he
had disgraced himself forever in the eyes of the only girl he had ever
loved. However, he determined to conquer his weakness and win her,
which he did. The story came out many years after and was told with much
enjoyment by the old men.

Two Strike was better known by his own people than by the whites, for
he was individually a terror in battle rather than a leader. He achieved
his honorable name in a skirmish with the Utes in Colorado. The Sioux
regarded these people as their bravest enemies, and the outcome of
the fight was for some time uncertain. First the Sioux were forced to
retreat and then their opponents, and at the latter point the horse of a
certain Ute was shot under him. A friend came to his rescue and took him
up behind him. Our hero overtook them in flight, raised his war club,
and knocked both men off with one blow.

He was a very old man when he died, only two or three years ago, on the
Rosebud reservation.

AMERICAN HORSE

One of the wittiest and shrewdest of the Sioux chiefs was American
Horse, who succeeded to the name and position of an uncle, killed in
the battle of Slim Buttes in 1876. The younger American Horse was born
a little before the encroachments of the whites upon the Sioux country
became serious and their methods aggressive, and his early manhood
brought him into that most trying and critical period of our history. He
had been tutored by his uncle, since his own father was killed in battle
while he was still very young. The American Horse band was closely
attached to a trading post, and its members in consequence were inclined
to be friendly with the whites, a policy closely adhered to by their
leader.

When he was born, his old grandfather said: "Put him out in the sun!
Let him ask his great-grandfather, the Sun, for the warm blood of a
warrior!" And he had warm blood. He was a genial man, liking notoriety
and excitement. He always seized an opportunity to leap into the center
of the arena.

In early life he was a clownish sort of boy among the boys--an expert
mimic and impersonator. This talent made him popular and in his way a
l